Balancing Welsh milk supplies

Welsh milk production is estimated at 1,976 million litres for 2019/20, just 0.2% higher than the level estimated in 2018/19, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) reports.

Of the milk produced in Wales, the AHDB estimates just 52% was processed in the country. 902 million litres was processed into cheese, and a further 134 million litres processed into other products, including liquid milk. That left a milk surplus to be transported into England of 939 million litres.

The last official milk production figures in GB by country were produced in 2014/15 by the RPA. Over the last few years the AHDB has estimated milk production annually by using milking herd numbers and an estimate of yields. The milking herd in Wales reduced to 252K head in 2019, a 3K head year-on-year decrease. Yields are estimated to have averaged 7,854 litres per cow in 2019/20, up 1.3% on the previous year.